Leaving it all behind: Making time for nature study

Piles of laundry and dirty dishes are like anchors that keep me inside when the weather is beautiful and my children are calling me to join them outside. I find Barb's Outdoor Hour Challenges truly challenging because I can't seem to find time to get outdoors with all the housework that remains unfinished.

I would like to take on a new challenge in 2012: to recognize that the housework will always be there but my children will not. It helps to also remember that being outdoors in nearly all weather conditions present in a temperate climate for just an hour is a boost to our health. As if I need more excuses to get outside for a little bit every day, my kids will not forget the efforts that I make to show that they are more important than the house. They make the house a home and I am happy to find ways to show it.

I have always enjoyed reading the Outdoor Hour Challenges and I think they are ideal for our family. Beginners are to start with the first five challenges and then visit the web site to join in the current challenge. I purchased the ebook with the first ten challenges to feel like I "own" this project. The book was only $8.95, a modest investment in what I hope will be a life changing activity.

Next, I created a section in our family planner for nature study. This is not just another subject in school. This is something that I hope will enrich relationships and strengthen our bodies.

Finally, I have to wait until Tuesday when we have time to start. This is a holiday weekend and we are far busier than I expected. The weather will be quite cold on Tuesday which will test my committment to this challenge :-)

The best laid plans: creating your own home planner

For years, I searched for a calendar/planner that would meet the needs of our busy homeschooling family. I even purchased a more expensive Day Timer brand product hoping the extra investment would get me a more useful tool. It just didn't work for us.

So, I decided to build my own home planner that would help our family run more smoothly. Here are the components that I used with links where you can print them out for your own use.

1) A sturdy 1.5 inch binder: I started with a cheap-o 1 inch binder from Dollar General and it broke within a couple of months. This planner will be carried, stacked, dropped, etc. so get something that will protect your investment.
2) Cover: This will distinguish your planner from other notebooks around the house. Use scrapbook papers and embellishments to make the cover a work of art that you will look forward to seeing every day. You can change it out mid year if you have a spare moment!
3) Page protectors: For pages that do not need to be modified on a regular basis, a page protector will keep them looking neat for frequent reference.
4) Adhesive tabs: Page protectors stick out further than regular paper so the usual binder dividers will not work. Make your own with adhesive tabs attached to the edge or a page protector.
5) Section 1: Calendar-- I modified the templates available on Wincalendar.com. I increased the size of the calendar cells and added a section for notes each month. You can download my modified version here.

I'll add more tips and downloads as I complete my 2012 home planner.

Learning on the go

Every Friday we attend a homeschool music class 30 minutes from home. The hour round trip drive plus any other running around we do throughout the week could take a chunk out of our learning time; but we don't like to waste time staring out the window!

I make a family learning CD to take in the van with us. The content changes monthly depending on what we have been studying at home. Most of these songs are available for download on Amazon.com or Songs for Teaching.com

1) Bible Verses (we like Steve Green's "Hide'em in Your Heart" album)
2) Science facts (especially Lyrical Learning)
3) Spanish (two tracks from La Clase Divertida and then one or two from Sara Jordan)
4) One hymn
5) One classical piece (or a single movement if the whole piece is too long for our drive)

We hear these over and over during the month and the kids love to sing the songs to themselves while playing in the afternoons.

We also keep other CDs on hand:
1) Story of the World (our favorite history book)
2) Audios book downloaded for free from Librivox.org
3) An audio Bible

I would eventually like to have an MP3 Player but for now, the we are happy burning one CD per month and saving a bit of money.

What do you like to listen to in the car with your children?

Thoughts on Television in the Home

(This is the 2nd email forward that my husband has sent me in 10 years, so you know it must be important!)

The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger... He was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. He made me laugh, and he made me cry.

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home - not from us, our friends or any visitors. After our long time visitor stayed longer he became more daring however, and even got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing..

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name?....

We just call him 'TV.' 

Learning Numbers and Math Facts in Spanish

My boys can count to 20 in Spanish, but I can tell it is more by rote memorization because they have difficulty naming individual numbers. When they were learning skip counting in English we listened to a LeapFrog song that I downloaded from Amazon.com. It really helped them to have the song's rhythm in their heads as they completed their math assignments. Now that I would like to teach them to be more fluent in Spanish, I am looking for Spanish songs similar to the ones by LeapFrog.

I found several available for free on YouTube (search for Boca Beth) as well as for purchase as MP3s on various websites. However, the sound quality seemed pretty poor which would be confusing for children who are still working on correct pronunciation.

Here are some products that I have found:
1) Spanish Random Number CD from Creative Mathematics-- A great idea, but it is $10 plus shipping for something I already do for free at home. I'll consider getting it in a couple of months if my home efforts don't pan out.
2) Sara Jordan Bilingual Songs-- these are available from the publisher's website along with lyrics or as MP3 downloads from Amazon.com. We have enjoyed Sara Jordan's bilingual songs about food, weather, etc. on Volume 1. Their songs about numbers are spread across several albums so I chose to purchase individual songs for $.99 each on Amazon. We now have Contando Hasta 30/ Counting to 30; Contando Por Decenas/ Counting by 10s; Formas y Tomaños/ Shapes and Sizes; and Contar regresivamente/ Count backwards, which is also about subtraction for numbers under 6.
3) Songs for Teaching-- MP3 albums and lyrics for songs on a variety of subjects. They don't have many Spanish math songs that go beyond basic counting, but I thought this one was a cute and easy to understand song about counting to 10's. I had to buy the entire $10 album but it had a few other songs that the kids will really like.

I have looked in to other resources for helping children learn Spanish and will post about them later on. It basically comes down to time commitment and working with a parent; but these songs and other resources are a great way to reinforce the lessons we are already doing at home!

Is it still "homeschool" if you aren't at home?

My kids' learning is based at home. We do the 3R's, Reading, wRiting, and aRithmatic at home and at each child's own pace. We also learn Spanish, art, Bible, science and history at home but spend an equal amount of time out of the house studying those topics.

Weekly homeschool co-op:

Visit to a Dairy Farm

We really enjoy learning Spanish using La Clase Divertida. However, there is nothing like sitting in a small group of people and practicing those conversational skills. That is difficult to do at home where there are children of widely different ages and ability levels, so we attend a homeschool co-op one morning per week that includes conversational Spanish. The boys are in separate classes divided by maturity/academics rather than age group, so each child feels comfortable with material presented in class. 

One of the moms in the co-op has a real passion for science and does a good job of engaging the children in discussion about science topics. Each class has 8 students so when they do science experiments, each child can be active for all or part of the lesson.

Museums:

We live in a medium-size city that contains many museums and historical sites. A two hour drive in any direction takes us to larger cities with even more opportunities for my kids to see relics from the history book we usually study. School groups will usually visit one museum per school year but we can go several times per year depending on the topics we are studying at home.

It isn't easy to get "hands on" with the ancient history we are learning in Story of the World, Volume One; but there is a full scale model of the Parthenon nearby and one of our universities has a permanent collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Our local art museum offers a monthly class to help homeschoolers get an in depth look at some of the pieces in the collection and a chance to use different media.

I want to give my children an education that is rooted in real life experience as much as in books. The term "homeschool" is too limited. The popular terms "life school" seems too broad and "unschool" describes what we aren't doing instead of what we are doing. Maybe we need a new word to explain what we are doing to help our kids learn about their world.

I would love any appropriate suggestions!

Two birds with one stone: audio books and housework

Most moms wish they had more time to read. Maybe it is a light hearted novel or perhaps an interesting bit of nonfiction. Unless it is the Bible, it is usually hard to justify letting the housework pile up while mom sits down to read.

Audio books can be different. When you lose yourself in an good book, you find that the most discouraging cleaning projects are finished in no time. There are several sources of good reading material that you can listen to on an MP3 or CD player.

1) Librivox.org has a large selection of classics. I have recently enjoyed books by Jane Austin, Mark Twain, and Rudyard Kipling, thanks to some dedicated people who volunteered their time recording books for free download. Many of the narrators are professionals who doa great job.

2) The public library is desperate to keep up with the needs of patrons in the digital age. Our library has subscriptions to two audio and ebook databases. The selection is not huge but is certainly adequate. They also have many books on CD and cassette.

3) Friends will sometimes own a copy of a book on MP3. It is within their rights to lend you a copy as long as you don't share it with anyone else.

4) Paid services like Audible.com are worth the fees if you find that listening to audio books helps you complete housework that would otherwise be neglected.

I'm going to listen to an Elizabeth Peters book while I clean out the storage room. That is a big job! It might take two audio books to complete.